


Missed Chances

by lunaseemoony



Series: Missed Memories [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-03-31
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:17:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 23,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3427559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunaseemoony/pseuds/lunaseemoony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lonely professor John Smith meets an enchanting student that he should fall head over heels for. But he fears that either their timing will never be right, or he’ll never be brave enough to truly open up to her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For [allegoricalrose](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/)'s [AU prompt](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/post/111809505664/listen-were-crazy-close-we-talk-all-the-time).
> 
> Rated Teen so far, but there's a possibility of that rating being upgraded to mature or explicit as a fair warning.

John met Rose in one of his physics courses, one that he was certain she only took because she was required to. She always sat in the third row of the lecture hall, which was close enough to prove to him that she cared to pay attention, but not so much to look like a suck up. Be noticed but not stand out. It was a viable strategy, except it didn’t work, at all. Rose didn’t sit there twirling her pen between her fingers, or framing her notes in doodles. She didn’t let her mind wander off to the furthest reaches of outer space, or catch up on her beauty sleep (not that she needed it). It would have been easier for him to not stare if she had. No, she leaned off the edge of her seat and paid him the same amount of attention a hungry cat would a caged canary.

And it was that way in every class John had with Rose. His every move was shadowed by her dark amber eyes. She was the only student that was brave enough to laugh at his jokes. He told them more often just so he could see her perfectly imperfect smile dimpling her pink cheeks. If he was lucky, and the joke was especially atrocious, she would shake her head and toss back her blonde hair in such a way that initially only sent shivers down his spine. That being said, he was just a bit more serious on the days she showed up to class with her hair plaited or hidden behind her peachy face wrapped up in a bun.

Test days were the best, as he could simply sit there and watch her without having to worry about tripping over his words. He tripped over his words even without the presence of an enigmatic blonde distraction in the third row. But on test days he didn’t have to speak. John admitted to himself only once that he wanted to be that ear that Rose tucked her errant locks behind. That’s not evening bringing into account the thoughts that crossed his mind when she let her pen slip past her lips when she paused to contemplate an answer.

Rose wasn’t brilliant. Not at physics, at least. John learned this after the first test that she just barely passed. But she made up for it by asking all of the right questions. If he had to describe her in just a few words, Rose would be the beautiful girl that asked all of the right questions. That’s who she was, and it was all that he was allowed to know, at least until the end of the semester.

John could have easily been the poster child for professors that lusted after their students. But it wouldn’t be accurate unless the student in question was Rose. Then he would paint that picture himself, as long as she could be in it. Scrap that. He just wanted to paint her. He didn’t even know the first principle of drawing the human form. He could learn. John explained the finer points of surface plasmon resonance to his introductory physics students before. He could learn to paint.

He at least knew that a work of art that had too small a subject tended to create too much negative space. As much as he thought himself a good judge of character, he knew next to nothing about Rose. He knew that she never missed a lecture, but she wasn’t always punctual. She was working her way through university, he surmised, because she always looked knackered on Mondays but not on Wednesdays. She often wore pink, but that didn’t mean it was her favorite color, just as his wasn’t brown. They spent an entire semester together, yet he didn’t even know what she majored in.

He didn’t know quite how far he’d sunk until their last class together. It was of course an exam day. John couldn’t feel Rose’s usual nervous focus wafting his way that day. He couldn’t even look at her, because she kept looking at him. It might have flattered him. John had never felt closer to Rose than in that all too brief moment when her pursuit of his gaze was won. It should have elated him, being allowed to properly bathe in the warmth of her chocolate eyes. But they looked as sad as he’d felt that day.

He knew she could have completed her exam sooner. But the longer she took, the less witnesses there were to her attempts at drawing in his attention again. John had felt caught the first time. He was supposed to be proctoring an exam, not ogling his students. Yet, when he furrowed his brow at Rose and cleared his throat his heart sank a little at how quick she was to jump and straighten up in her seat. But it did little to extinguish her resolve, because a few minutes later he caught her looking his way again. He smiled back at her this time. It wouldn’t kill him to play her little game. Each time their eyes met thereafter, they allowed themselves to linger a little longer. He winked at her, she did something with her tongue between her teeth that had him nearly cascading out of his desk chair. His only saving grace was his foot caught under the desk. When John looked up again, Rose’s face had turned a ripe shade of pink because she must have been holding her breath to keep from laughing at him. She failed, albeit quietly, at least. Forget pub quiz. This was his new favorite game.

She smiled at him one last time when she handed him her exam. He could explain away the finer points of string theory or quantum electrodynamics. But Rose’s smile was as of yet an unsolved equation. One chance. He had one chance. His long spindly fingers caught hers in their web for just a split second when her hand met his. He had to touch her. Just once. He was allowed to run his thumb along the peaks and valleys formed by her delicate fingers. And oh, were they soft! Weeks spent wondering what his palm might feel like on her cheeks, or his fingers along her collarbone, were wasted. He never imagined that her palm in his would feel like a blanket of warmth and kindness that sent a shiver straight to his chest.

John was still living in this moment when he realized that Rose had left it. By the time he looked up she was already walking up the steps towards the door that would allow her to leave him. It was bound to happen, he knew this. He hadn’t expected to find himself frozen and drowning under his heart’s failed attempts at calming itself. What could he say? Nothing, as Rose was greeted at that accursed door by a chaste kiss from a man her own age before flying away and leaving him feeling gutted.

Gutted, not for the failed attempt at seducing a student (not that he made an actual effort), but for his failure to take into account that of course a woman like Rose would already be with someone. He awoke from his fever dream the next day when he set about grading the exams from the class she was in. John had been foolish, but innocent enough. He hadn’t intended to do anything with Rose, of course. But their little game of cat and mouse was intruded upon by that vacant-looking young man that stole a kiss as she walked away from him without looking back. He deserved this, John told himself, for letting himself get so lost in someone he scarcely even knew.

Hers was the last exam in the stack to grade. She’d improved enough over the course of the semester to say he’d at least done a good job instructing her. John left her a passing grade. And evidently, on the last page of the lengthy exam, Rose also left him something. He put on his reading glasses and squinted through them to read a note scrawled onto a little square of paper ripped out of her notebook.

Along with her mobile number and a little X, the note read just one word: Tea?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lonely professor John Smith meets an enchanting student that he should fall head over heels for. But he fears that either their timing will never be right, or he’ll never be brave enough to truly open up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [allegoricalrose](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/)'s [AU prompt](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/post/111809505664/listen-were-crazy-close-we-talk-all-the-time).

John couldn't, wouldn't acknowledge that little slip of paper until he published grades for the course. In the meantime, he slipped it behind his identification in his wallet. That was it then. Rose had an ace up her sleeve. No wonder she kept looking at him. The minx! The cheek! Just when he had her figured out, she had to throw a wrench into it. Rose was the sort of equation that would keep him up at night. It had him considering changing his field of study from physics to females. 

He wasn't being realistic, of course. And he pondered this all the way home from the university that night. He thanked the stars that he didn't have a car, because he dropped his briefcase more than once walking to the bus. He dropped his briefcase while on the bus, an incredible feat even for him considering that he was sitting down. A newspaper or magazine to read might have done well, but he wouldn't have been able to hold the pages in his insufferably shaky hands. 

That little scrap of paper was all he had of Rose. Despite his profession, John didn't consider himself to be quite so rational a person. So to him it was perfectly reasonable to wrap the torn square depicting her word of challenge in clear tape and then stick it to his fridge. 

And that was where the little scrap of paper would stay, stuck to his fridge. John was thankful for not knowing any psychologists, because the way that the already sparse collection of magnets somehow managed to rearrange themselves around the delicate swirls that formed Rose's handwriting would probably make for an interesting conversation. 

He punched the series of numbers into his phone that would either be the death of him or his dream come true at least once a week. But he never went through with the call. To be fair, the good professor had the best trump card that would let him fold and step away from this game. Rose was a student. Maybe not his student any longer, but a student nevertheless. Would the board or his department head care to take such minutia into account? Doubtful. Definitely not. 

It was no coincidence then that the days that John chose to punch in Rose's mobile number coincided with the physics department group meetings. His department head was relentless in reminding him that his funding would fly away if he didn't produce any results within the next semester. He maybe cared just a little bit, just slightly less, about ethics on these days. And maybe it would do to walk around campus with a ripe slice of arm candy. 

Rose wasn't his arm candy, though. This much he'd already learned. Sod the rules. This was what kept him from completing that call. And honestly, what sort of professor was friends with his students? Not this one, he decided. If he was going to cross that line, he may as well run to the finish. Gods above, though. That boy she was with (he decided to make this distinction to make himself feel better) just had to be a wanker. He couldn't even remember what the kid looked like other than the worst sort of lazily spiked hair, cut off jeans, and all together too many piercings. Nevertheless, Rose had tender eyes and kisses for this boy. It made John's blood boil, and mistakes appear all over the place in his research. His randomly dispersed growls and fists pounded on his desk made his poor grad students jump up from their lab work every time without fail. 

By the time that John realized he could have tea with Rose while not entertaining the notion of dating her, half of the summer break had flown by. Five weeks past. He might have been able to swing one week without calling Rose, maybe even two if he was really lucky. Five was too much. No amount of post graduate education could save him from being a complete idiot for missing this chance, for missing Rose. Maybe if he sat in the commons of campus he might be lucky enough to catch a glimpse of the smile that could melt a glacier, or that giggle that wrinkled her nose in such a way that made his heart pound so fiercely that he was rendered dizzy. No, he'd waited too long. Rose was gone. 

Except, no. Rose was standing in the doorway of his office two weeks before the start of the next semester. Her arms were crossed, and her brow curled her forehead into a wrinkle. She looked.. angry? John had seen her happy, sad, confused, even dazed, but never cross. She was cute when she was mad, even if it was directed at him. And yet part of his brain didn't register that Rose was really standing there in front of him twenty feet from him until she spoke. 

“There's still space in your physics 201 course. Just found out. And if you don't ring me up, professor, I'm going to enroll in it. You know I'm not a physics major, so I'll drive you bonkers.” 

John learned right then and there that there is no graceful way to fall out of a chair. There was no reason for putting his feet up on his desk, except to look cool for his grad students or for the occasional passerby. At least if he was going to fall to the floor on his arse, he got to make a spectacle of it by accidentally also dropping all of the paperwork he'd been filling out, sending it flying. After this event there was no need for a cool recovery, but he attempted one anyway. He leaped up onto his gangly, knobby legs and made them hold up his weight while he clawed into the mahogany wood desk. Of course in the process his glasses fell off his face and landed with a clash onto the desk. Over all, he'd give himself an 8 out of 10 for the dramatic production, and a 2 out of 10 for coordination. 

“What?” John squeaked. He met eyes with Rose only so briefly before his darted back down to his desk, perhaps hoping that was where his adam's apple went.

Rose walked right up to his desk and leaned into it. John had to clutch his part of the desk that much harder until he opted to sit, lest he make even more of a fool of himself. She smelled like peaches and sunflowers. When did sunflowers have a smell? It didn't matter, it was gorgeous. And she must have known so, because she set her other hand on the desk and leaned in further. When her eyebrow arched this time, it was coupled with the worst sort of salacious grin. Look up, look up, look up, he told himself. Eyes, where were her eyes? There, reaching out to his, darting back and forth. 

“You heard me, John,” Rose said.

He saw her tremble. Tremble! Was her heart trying to sprint a race too? Her breath hitched, but she still smiled at him. It gave him just a bit of confidence. Enough.

“So my choices are enduring another torturous semester with you, or an hour of tea?” His tongue clicked against his teeth when he grinned at her. Did she buy it?

“Sounds rather daft when you say it out loud, doesn't it, Dr. Smith?”

“Oh, no. Don't do that.” He turned his nose up at her and shook his head.

“That's what you asked us to call you in class, remember?”

John shoved his fingers through his unruly brown hair and gurgled an affirmative sound in his gullet. “Yup,” He finally added. “But it's not.. no. John, please.”

“Mmm,” Rose hummed, and licked her teeth. He sat bolt upright in his chair before she spoke again. “So it's tea, then?”

“Yes?”

“Good! Ring me then, John.” She wiggled her fingers at him before disappearing just as mysteriously as she appeared.

Rose really was a horrible woman. After all that, he still had to call her? He hated his mobile. They were useless devices, really, compared to what one could divine from face to face conversations. There was no doubt in his mind, though. They were playing a game. According to her, he'd broken the rules by pressing pause for several weeks. So she upped the stakes of the game. Minx. 

Nothing could compare to the rush of adrenaline and endorphins that John felt after actually ringing her that very evening. He could at least thank her for that. There was no need to go running when there was a Rose to send your heart racing, to be sure. 

The following day was a Saturday. John was going just a tiny bit (a complete lie) spare waiting for the afternoon to come around. He could have just told her to meet him at the cafe that morning for breakfast. Breakfast with Rose. It even sounded like a delightful little book that he could read to her while she sipped on warm tea and nibbled at strawberries. He imagined her eating fruit, because there was no way that she didn't like fruit. It gave him an idea. 

That Saturday afternoon, along with all that followed, became theirs. The Doctor brought along a mystery novel that they finished reading that day in a tucked away corner of the quiet cafe. Their tea, only half finished, went cold that first Saturday. They didn't even get around to ordering anything else. John enjoyed reading to Rose a lot more than he should of. Their couch in the cafe was always clear for them every Saturday afternoon. He could hide behind the suspense of a good mystery without revealing too much of himself to Rose. 

Except after a few weeks of meeting up on Saturdays, Rose decided to call him once or twice on other days of the week. He had to actually speak to her. It was distinctly possible, John considered, that Rose was sneaking past his defenses without his even being aware. Though he felt his constant nattering about science, comic books and his favorite films weren't that telling, he was also learning that Rose was just clever enough to see past it. 

John also learned that the more he nattered on, the less Rose might have a chance to talk about her boyfriend. Even thinking the boy's name made his stomach turn. He would admit only to himself that he liked the boy a lot better before when he was known only as “wanker.” Rose didn't speak of him much, however, perhaps because she seldom had nice things to say about him. On a cold night in November, only three months shy of the first time John had met Rose, he learned that this was with good reason. 

John was walking to the library this time instead of the bus stop, intending to look out for a new book to start with Rose. Incidentally, the library was next to the English building, which – he worked out later – was where Rose's last class of the day on Fridays was. Even after his first class with Rose, nearly a year ago, he could pick her out of a crowd. So it was impossible for him to not spot her on a bench under a tree outside the English building doubled over, head buried in her knees. Her sparkly pink phone sat at her feet, shattered to pieces with no hope of repair. This was one equation that was simple to solve. 

Despite how much they talked, John had never really touched Rose other than that one time when she handed her exam in. There was something about Rose crying that saw him beside her quicker than his legs should have been able to manage. He didn't even blink before his arm was wrapped around her shoulder. Some poor soul would have hell to pay, because there was only one instance that came to mind that should cause Rose to gasp so desperately for breaths. And it most certainly did not involve tears, and so many clothes. 

“Come on,” He whispered into her ear after brushing her wet locks behind it. “Chips. And then we're calling Jackie from my mobile to tell her you're getting a new one. A not-pink one.” 

But of course, John learned on that very day, when Jimmy Stone left Rose and her broken heart behind, that he had been looking at this all of the wrong ways. He had a chance this time, yes. But it wasn't to take Jimmy's place. John felt right then and there that the best way to protect his Rose's tender heart was to call himself her friend.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lonely professor John Smith meets an enchanting student that he should fall head over heels for. But he fears that either their timing will never be right, or he’ll never be brave enough to truly open up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [allegoricalrose](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/)'s [AU prompt](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/post/111809505664/listen-were-crazy-close-we-talk-all-the-time).

_“Come on.” He whispered into her ear after brushing her wet locks behind it. “Chips. And then we're calling Jackie from my mobile to tell her you're getting a new one. A not-pink one.”_

“Do I have to?” Rose pouted at John while she stepped out of a hole-in-the-wall chippy two hours later. 

“What?” John paused, and held out his hand in front of her to stop her from walking. “You don't want to call your mum? That's not like you, Rose.”

His heart swelled when he realized that he knew Rose well enough to gather this fact about her. In their phone conversations Rose often spoke so fondly of her mum, giving credence to the idea that she was as much a friend as she was a doting mother. Rose kept next to nothing from her mum. If John was to venture a guess he would wager that there'd be no point in it anyway. Those eyes of Rose's that could see right past him had to come from somewhere, he pondered. 

“I want to,” Rose confessed in a sigh as she eyed the streets, perhaps contemplating where she was going. “Just not yet. Mum hated Jimmy.”

His thin lips curled into a bit of a smirk. “No humble pie for Rose Tyler, then?”

This statement earned him a scowl, and a hand placed on her hip. “Oh, now go on. Say it.” 

“Say what? I wasn't going to say a thing!” John shook his head and his hands in front of his face. “Just maybe ask if I could see you home? You shouldn't be alone. On the way, I mean. If you want. Just offering.” 

John was certain that he couldn't look more awkward if he tried. He was still holding out his mobile with the hopes that maybe Rose might change her mind and ring her mum. His hair, which he'd gone to great lengths to tame that morning (but he tried equally as hard to not let this show), strongly resembled an angry hedgehog's simply from his penchant for messing with it when he was nervous. John was nervous most times when he was around Rose. It was a miracle that he still had hair left on his head at all. All he wanted to do was offer Rose a hug. And for once this wish would be for completely unselfish reasons. He might have gotten one if he hadn't tried to be responsible. 

“I'm gonna have to move,” Rose growled, and folded her arms across her chest. She looked up at him as he guided her under an awning to shield her from the rain that had begun to fall while they were eating. “We shared that flat. I can't.. I won't stay there.” 

John's heart began to do a tap dance against its cage. Its need for relief was strong, and was doing anything it could to make this known with each passing millisecond. He'd been playing with the plastic backing on his phone with his thumb, but decided to pocket the device. It was a battle he'd lost. There was no guidebook given to professors that had unusual relationships with students. If there was, John couldn't expect to find a chapter on how to deal with cute, stubborn and distraught women with puppy eyes. He would have to write that chapter himself. He did just that. 

John closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and captured Rose's hand. “Where do you want to go?” He asked, putting on his best stern face to combat those puppy eyes. 

Rose frowned at him, but tightened her grasp on his hand. Now that she had it, she wasn't letting go, even if it was cold and clammy. She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it. He'd caught her off guard. This was an event to include in his autobiography. November 12, 2006. Stumped Rose Tyler with a simple question. Her answer also came in the form of a question. “Can we go to yours?” And just for insurance, she leaned into his shoulder and batted her eyes at him. 

There was a good, long list of reasons why this was a bad idea. John started out with the obvious. Rose was a student, and he a professor. Check. They'd only ever met in public. Check. She was emotionally compromised. Check. His flat looked like a tornado had gone through it. Check. He had no interest in feeling any regrets later. Check. He was terribly afraid of one Jackie Tyler that he hadn't even met yet. Check check. 

He quickly grew tired of running through this list. It had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he was enjoying the feel of Rose's soft and slightly damp hair on the ball of his shoulder. He certainly wasn't feeling beaten down by those whiskey colored eyes, framed in slightly smeared mascara, burrowing into his weak heart. She really was a minx. Or John was just that weak. Probably both.

“Only if you take this,” he relinquished her hand to offer her his mobile, “and phone someone. Tell them you're okay.”

John was maybe just a little bit proud of himself. He'd outfoxed Rose. And yet, as she sat next to him on the phone with her mum, he realized that the bus was still traveling in the direction of his flat. He might call this round an even tie. He began to lay out plans for the next round while his companion got into an argument with her mother. 

John lived on the end of a noisy block of row houses. There were days where he enjoyed bearing witness to the busy lives of his neighbors. His Saturday mornings were spent out on his patio grading work while watching the world turn around him. He was surrounded by creatures of habit. The same old man walked his sheepdog around the side of his house towards the green-way leading to the nearby park at the same time every day. The woman that lived across from him jogged almost every day, except on Saturdays, when the woman she was stepping out on her boyfriend with came over. John might have loved the family he shared a wall and a garden fence with. They were perfectly delightful, and their children were uncommonly polite. They looked so happy. 

He stood in the foyer and watched Rose make a slow twirl on her feet before she moved to exploring his space. It was his house, so why was he paralyzed for a whole minute while she wandered around? She knew better than to venture upstairs, at least. But when she returned, her face looked pale with despair. Something that he swallowed in the back of his throat told him that it didn't come from her broken heart. 

“It's just you in this big house?” Rose asked, with disbelief coating her words. “It's huge.”

John rubbed the nape of his neck just under the wrinkled collar. “Well, you know. I need a lot of space to, well..”

“No you don't. Your office is so clean compared to this, but you don't care what they think. This isn't a normal mess, John,” Rose argued. 

His eyes darted around, looking for evidence to the contrary. He walked into the sitting room, trusting her to follow. “No it's not! Look there, a crumby plate from breakfast! See? And a mug. That's normal, isn't it?” Rose laughed under her breath and shook her head. A laugh! Her life couldn't be that horrible after all. “Come on, I want to show you something,” John blurted out before Rose could argue with him further. 

He had everything planned out before they stepped off the bus. They were to stay up late until their eyes were red and stinging from exhaustion while watching old black and white monster films. Perfect distraction. The plan was rock solid. He'd been chatting up these old films with Rose recently while they worked through Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. 

And it worked, quite well, if John could make such an assessment. Though Rose chose to sit by herself in John's favorite armchair, he got intermittent laughs from her over the course of two films. He had little interest in watching them himself, he found. Rose was much more captivating. She was curled up in a little ball hugging one of his pillows under his wool blanket. She looked like she'd been to his place dozens of times, like the stuffy old chair he inherited from his dad was in fact her own. 

“What do you say to some ice cream?” John perked up after they finished the second film, clapping his hands together. Rose's eyes lit up hearing these words. So he grinned, stood up and padded into the kitchen. 

She stopped him just before he reached the door frame to take his hand. “Thanks, John,” Rose beamed up at him. 

***

Rose stood up after John disappeared into his kitchen to stretch. The chair she'd been sitting in felt well lived in. Her mum would have told her to toss it, maybe citing that it looked like it belonged in an abandoned house. It was old, yes. The upholstery was even torn in a couple places. But it must not have mattered much to John, because it carried so much of his scent of rain and sandalwood. The chair was perfectly imperfect, just like its owner. 

As she stood and looked around, her eyes fell on a stack of boxes in a corner that were bothering her. Each room that Rose had peaked into so far had at least one little stack of boxes in it. This was part of the abnormal mess that had made the hairs on her neck and arms stand up. Something was wrong. And John was a little bit too skilled with distracting her from this fact. A cold shiver traveled down her spine when she noticed that something was spilling out of the top box in the stack. Rose ventured a guess that the frilly green blouse wasn't his. Maybe she was over thinking this. Maybe he wouldn't mind her taking a peek. 

Nestled safely on top of a bed of a woman's clothes sat a picture frame turned over. Rose didn't need to be a brilliant physicist like John to work out that the woman in the pristine, silver framed photograph wasn't a sister or close friend. She didn't even need to read the caption at the bottom, either, though it was quite pertinent. The photo was taken in autumn, the pair of them were surrounded by a bed of crimson and gold leaves. John was dressed smartly (not that he wasn't normally), wearing a navy jumper and corduroys. The woman that he held above him to spin in the air had blonde hair trapped in a messy bun, and she wore a simple blue and white frock. Their smiles belonged on the cover of one of the horribly cheesy romance novels that she kept in her bedside table drawer. Of course, most telling was the caption at the bottom of the photo: “Save the date, June 15, 2003.”

She'd been callous. All of a sudden Rose's actions appeared to be very juvenile. She went and dove head first into the pair of arms that came to rescue her first that afternoon. It might have been Mick. She was about to go and call him when John turned up. Not only did she take up so much of his time, but manipulated him into letting her come home with him. John might not have been ready to welcome Rose into this facet of his life. 

Slowly, Rose put the picture back down and made a point of covering it up with a shirt that had been under it previously. It may as well have been the evidence to her dirty crime. And as she turned back around out of the corner of boxes, she'd been caught for sure. John stood in the doorway, watching her every move as if he had been for at least a minute. How long did she stare at that photo? Yet he stood there frozen, seeming to have no interest in apprehending her. He had that same expression on his face as he did when he saw her for her final exam in his physics class, as if he could break at any moment. 

“Her name was Joan,” He told her in a hushed, gravelly voice. 

Rose backed away from the boxes, afraid that knowing the woman's name might make the photograph itself lash out at her for invading her house. It didn't make her tactful, however. “What happened to her?” She asked, barely above a whisper.

He straightened up, looked away, and answered with a degree of nonchalance that chilled her. “She disappeared, almost four years ago.”

“John, I..” Rose bleated, but her breath hitched before she could say another word. She covered her mouth and shook her head. 

“Oh, now don't do that,” John said, and approached her cautiously. This was when she burst into tears. 

***

He really was a right git. But there was no helping it now. He'd already made her cry. All John could do was wrap Rose in his arms with the hopes that it would be enough to make her stop. He didn't know what to say to a crying woman. It was an incurable situation. If he said one word in the wrong direction, he knew he could make it worse. Much, much worse. So he didn't speak a word. 

And maybe for once he was a little bit glad for it. He would never find out the reason for Rose's sudden onslaught of tears. She seemed content to keep her head buried in between his suit jacket (which he was now glad that he was still wearing) and his shirt. Both would now need a good washing to remove the smeared make up stains. But he would happily ruin every shirt he owned for another chance at enveloping Rose and all of her warmth in his arms. Despite her hyperventilating, her heart greeted his with heavy and steady beats. He pulled her in closer. She would never be close enough. He would have to be content nuzzling her temple. And much to his surprise, it seemed to work. 

“Joan,” Rose pulled back and murmured. 

John shook his head and let Rose go. “We've got a whole stack of horrible old films to get through, hm? Come on then, they won't watch themselves.” 

He hadn't realized how long they had been standing there until he looked down at their two dishes of ice cream to find them in a state of pure soup. This didn't seem to faze either of them. Rose sat down on the couch while John popped the next disc into the DVD player. John sat down next to her, and she wasted no time in taking his hand to hold. Young Frankenstein proved to be the perfect distraction for the both of them. Rose didn't make it through the movie that followed, however. She fell asleep beside him, and used the suit jacket that he'd taken off as a pillow. John covered Rose up with his wool blanket when the film finished.

“Guess you're staying the night, then.” John told the sleeping blonde after casting an eye at his wall clock. It was half past midnight. “This wasn't supposed to be about me. You would do that,” he told her. “It really would have been okay for you to just be comforted.”

He stood there and watched Rose sleep for a few minutes. This girl was going to be the death of him. When he replayed the day's events in his mind (mostly their embrace, if he was to be honest), he decided that maybe this was okay. When he stepped back into the sitting room from cleaning up the ice cream dishes he eyed the stack of boxes that had attracted Rose's attention earlier. 

“You spooked her well and good, thanks,” John told the picture. “It's not as though there's much of a story to tell.” 

In truth, John hadn't thought about Joan in at least a year. The authorities had long since given up on finding her. They never said so, but John surmised that they were simply waiting for a body to turn up. He also thought that her own family had been cruel in telling him to move on with his life. The grief from hearing those words cut into him much deeper than the wound he was already protecting. 

It wasn't easy to walk away from a sleeping beauty on his couch. But there was nothing more that John could do for Rose. The notion that he was getting ready for bed that night to sleep was laughable. With Rose downstairs and Joan figuratively upstairs, John had no expectations of getting even a wink of sleep. He may have slipped into his pyjamas, but he didn't even attempt to sleep. He worked on grading labs instead. This task carried him to sunrise. 

John was thinking that it might even out the tension between himself and Rose by making her breakfast when he trudged downstairs just after sunrise. Maybe he could even begin to explain to Rose who Joan was, if he was feeling so brave (which until he had any food in his belly, he was most certainly not). But as he peered into the sitting room, he found that there was nobody there to make breakfast for but himself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lonely professor John Smith meets an enchanting student that he should fall head over heels for. But he fears that either their timing will never be right, or he’ll never be brave enough to truly open up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [allegoricalrose](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/)'s [AU prompt](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/post/111809505664/listen-were-crazy-close-we-talk-all-the-time). (And I promise the quote in the prompt will be coming up.. just not yet.)

_Maybe he could even begin to explain to Rose who Joan was, if he was feeling so brave (which until he had any food in his belly, he was most certainly not). But as he peered into the sitting room, he found that there was nobody there to make breakfast for but himself._

 

John felt Rose’s absence acutely. There was no reason for her to show up at their Saturday afternoon meet at the cafe. But he still went all the same. He sat in their usual tucked away corner nursing a cup of tea for at least an hour before the waitress returned with a sympathetic sort of smile to take it away.

“Your girlfriend isn’t here today? Hope she’s alright,” the young waitress commented as the teacup he’d been using clinked against a dish on her overloaded tray.

Alright, it would be a bold faced lie to tell the waitress that the thought of Rose being his girlfriend hadn’t ever crossed his mind. The notion had a permanent flight plan logged in his daydreams’ air traffic control. When it came to this variety of scandalous thought, John created for himself a hierarchy in regards to level of appropriateness. At the top of course was making plans to pursue his interests. His daydreams made up the foundation of the pyramid, with all manner of thoughts squished in between.

He would have to daydream a lot, because a whole week passed without hearing from Rose. After this he told himself that he deserved to be abandoned for fooling himself into thinking this relationship with a girl thirteen years his junior could work. Rose’s message was unequivocally clear by leaving without a trace that day. John was damaged goods. He was just past that age where he could be considered salvageable. And he couldn’t suppress the niggling feeling that Rose’s disappearance was a reflection of just how much she trusted him. Perhaps she changed her mind.

This didn’t mean that he could accept that Rose had simply up and left. John still wanted her to know the whole story before she could pass judgment on him. With that plan being thrown by the wayside, he felt pressed to come up with another one. Every day that Rose didn’t call him to tell him about her horrible evening of work at the department store or ask him out to a quick lunch made him just that much more determined. It wasn’t just about Joan. As much as John loved her, she wasn’t a part of this. And it wasn’t fair for her to be. Not this time.

John came up with a plan on the seventh day. He was a professor at the university, so he had access to things that the students didn’t, like their class schedules. Maybe it made him seem just a bit like a stalker. Did he care? Only just a tiny bit. He was angry. Rose was the one that had dared to pull him out of his comfortable little shell. She wasn’t allowed to just leave John behind, not before he at least spoke to her.

In fact, he had a whole speech planned. He was going to wait outside of the lecture hall of Rose’s last class on day nine. It would be impossible not to catch her. He wasn’t going to let it happen. He imagined her jumping out of her skin at the sight of him. And before she could say anything, John would pounce. He would reprimand her for robbing him of the chance of being a good friend for her during her own heartache. He would remind her how right it felt when her fingers were laced with his. He would ask her what she was doing sitting in the middle of his graduate level physics course.

“And when you take the resonant energy of-”

There she sat, dead center in a pack of grad students looking almost as if she might fit in with them. She had been simply listening to his banter. But when his eyes met hers he saw all sorts of mischief behind them. And the longer he stood there paralyzed by her presence, the wider her grin grew, until that tease of a tongue of hers kissed her teeth.

“Sir?” The studious kid in the front row prompted him with a wave of his hand.

John smacked the podium with the hopes of making his brain work properly. “Right!” The room was so silent that he heard her giggle, however. “Um.. where was I?” It was maybe just a little bit irritating that he could be rendered incapable of coherent speech and thought by such an adorable little laugh. He looked at the clock on the far wall and grinned. “You know what? We’ve only got fifteen minutes left. What do you say we pick this up next time, eh?”

While most of his students chose not to take any chances of John changing his mind, the one studious kid pounded his head on his desk and sighed. He made to protest when the girl sitting next to him tapped his arm to make him stand so that she could file out of the row. He gave in, and John was home free. Well, maybe not completely.

Rose leaned back in her desk with one leg crossed over the other and her hands behind her head. Her grin spoke of a kitten with a bowl of cream as she fixed her hands under her chin and met his eyes. Her wiggling, boot-clad foot was her happily twitching tail. He’d probably never tell her, but that beaming, cocky grin looked gorgeous on her. And god damn it, he wanted to capture that ill-mannered tongue of hers and teach it a lesson or two. Speaking of which…

“Oh no, Miss Tyler, you’re not excused just yet,” John said as she made to stand up.

“Yeah?” Rose perked up.

He stood back behind his podium. “Oh no, you’re most certainly not. So sit back down, if you please.” The peachy blush that began to color her cheeks gave him a burst of confidence. “A question for you, Miss Tyler.”

“Oh god, is this a pop quiz?” Rose gasped and leaned into her desk.

“If you will, sure,” He answered, following the rush of adrenaline he felt from seeing Rose’s chest quiver with its inhabitant’s attempt at calming down (and failing slightly).

“John, I-”

“Mm mm, no. I’m a teacher, Miss Tyler. If you didn’t want me to instruct, then perhaps it might have been wiser to not sneak into my class, hmm?”

“And what if I don’t want to be a good student?” Rose challenged.

It was an odd sort of exchange, having a discussion with someone from over twenty feet away. And Rose may as well have been one of his jumpy students during a pop quiz. He had all of the power while standing behind his professorial podium. John could see that Rose felt its pressure. It was a little absurd, given that they were playing a game. But to her it might have been serious. Her v neck shirt allowed him to see just a little bit of her trembling cleavage. Rose could have been a caught snake, writhing in her seat as she was. She must have wanted nothing more than to speak to him plainly. Maybe he enjoyed seeing her squirm a little. Memories of how much warm she felt in his arms propelled the next few words from his mouth, however.

“Oh yeah? So then what have you got to say for yourself, hmm?”

John wasn’t aware, but he’d been slowly working his way towards Rose’s seat in the center of the lecture hall. So when she jumped out of her seat, he jumped a little too. She took both of his hands and laced her fingers with his before he could take another breath or argue. Did Rose know him that well? So much that she recalled just how distracted he could be made to be simply by touching him? Did she know how much she made him lose track of time and his surroundings simply by staring up into his eyes?

“You are a bad student,” John croaked. “How am I supposed to teach my lesson with you distracting me with your wiles, Miss Tyler?”

“You came up to me,” Rose argued, and squeezed his spindly fingers.

“I might tolerate you arguing with me if you hadn’t worried me by vanishing without a trace like you did last week.”

“That’s why I’m here. I felt like such a cad, John.”

He wiggled his fingers out of her grasp so he could put one to her lips. And then he had to pause to appreciate that his calloused finger was touching the oh so soft and ripe pinkness of her lips. “You know, I thought that I wanted you to explain yourself. But honestly, Rose.. I.. I missed you. Just give me this. Tell me you trust me.”

Rose’s eyes were darkened with horror the moment he spoke these words. It was possible, John considered, that she just panicked, that he had overreacted. It was too late to take his words back now. Her grip on his hand loosened. John readied himself for the possibility that she might want to take off again. She thought herself confident waltzing in. But maybe revealing to her that her absence wore a hole in his heart was too much for her to know.

“I do trust you. Course I do. You were so kind to me, John. And then I saw her, and I just.. Jimmy really hurt, and Mickey is in a whole category of his own. I don’t want to mess it up with you, which sounds daft now, because I up and ran, I know. And don’t you tell me to hush. I’m not done,” Rose rattled off like the words might explode in her mouth if she didn’t let them all out at once.

John just bit his lower lip until it won out into the worst sort of cocky grin.

“But I’m here aren’t I? You’re too important to me to lose as a friend. Got a new phone, and I finally got so tired of not ringing you to bother you,” Rose continued, swinging their hands to and fro. “And alright, fine. I was scared you were cross with me.”

“I was. Am,” He replied, and watched her eyes glass over just a little. It had to be a trick. “And I’m alright with a bit of mess, you know.”

Those eyes of hers had to be certifiably evil, if not the most precious commodity in the world. They lit up when he spoke to her with a gentle smile. They sparkled when he invited her out to dinner with him before he headed home. They exuded such warmth as she walked with him across campus and to a quiet little restaurant. They were kind even when he spoke to her about Joan.

Rose had to know the truth. He felt compelled to tell her for different reasons this time. John was floating on his little cloud of knowing he was important to someone again. It brought up a thought that he hadn’t really considered yet, and it sent a shiver of gooseflesh all over his freckly skin. It was this thought that saw him calmly revealing just a little bit of his past to Rose.

“Without a trace?” Rose asked when John had more or less finished his story.

“Her investigation’s case file is quite sparse, I was told,” John explained. “I was the first person they took in for questioning. I suppose they figured foul play at first. The fiance would have done it. But they turned up nothing. There haven’t been really any leads at all. The police are waiting for either a body to turn up or seven years to pass to declare her dead.”

Rose’s hand, which had been atop his to offer it support, curled so that her fingernails could dig pierce the rough skin there. John winced. “How can you say it like that?!”

John’s nose wrinkled and he tugged at his ear anxiously. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.” Surely she wouldn’t make him say it, would she?

“Do you miss her?”

John let go of her hand and untamed all of his hard work on his hair. How did she have this unique ability of making him seem like a villain no matter how he might answer? He felt his adam’s apple bobbing up and down in his throat in anticipation of his answer. But none would come. The truth was bitter, selfish, and silent. Rose, bless her kind and tender heart, recognized a whole minute of agony passing as a cue to let him off the hook.

There were so few people in John’s life that knew about Joan. He’d previously shared many of them with her, and when she disappeared they all seemed to want to talk about it. Avoiding them saved John quite a bit of heartache. Yet in the process he’d lost quite a few friends. He wanted to have good memories of Joan. Nobody seemed to understand that part of keeping them was leaving her behind.

And then there was Rose. Rose came into his life and told him that night that she gave him permission to be as happy as he wanted, because she couldn’t bear to see him sad. And the way that she looked so deeply into his eyes when she said it made him forget to breathe for just a moment. There they were in a tiny little restaurant, not the most glamorous place, making a memory that was all together too glorious for him to reflect on for more than a heartbeat.

Rose meant it when she said she considered him a friend. Her “bothering” calls to him then came almost every day. The subject matter of these calls hadn’t changed, but the length of time she could wait to speak to him had drastically, by her own admission. Outside of Saturdays, the pair of them shared a meal together at least once a week. And their meetings on Saturdays moved from their cafe to John’s flat. John became absolutely consumed by Rose. His work at the university was something that he did in between talking to her and being at her side.

She called him at 2 AM on December 23rd. “Hey you,” John hummed at her.

“You’re up?”

“You sound disappointed.”

She giggled in that way that made his heart somersault. “I’ve never heard you groggy. Bet you sound delightful first thing in the morning.”

“With terrible morning breath, mind,” John warned.

“We’ll see about that,” She teased.

“How’s that then? Want to have a slumber party? I’ll warn you, my nails don’t look cute pink, and girl talk is not my strong suit.”

Rose had to hold the phone away to laugh. “No, but my mum says you’re coming to our Christmas party.”

“You didn’t tell me Jackie’s clairvoyant.”

“She wants to meet you,” Rose clarified. “Speaking of which, how good is your acting, John?”

They never had normal discussions late at night, he found. But this one piqued his interest more than most. What sort of mischief was Rose Tyler attempting to get him into this time? He thought attempt, but he knew better than to think that he could tell her no. She didn't need to be there looking at him to melt him into submission, the wicked minx.

“There’s a reason I’m a physics professor, Rose.”

“I told mum that we met at the library. She doesn't know you were my professor.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lonely professor John Smith meets an enchanting student that he should fall head over heels for. But he fears that either their timing will never be right, or he’ll never be brave enough to truly open up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [allegoricalrose](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/)'s [AU prompt](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/post/111809505664/listen-were-crazy-close-we-talk-all-the-time).

_“... mum says you're coming to our Christmas party.” “I told mum that we met at the library. She doesn't know you were my professor.”_

Rose had only given John a day to prepare himself for that crucial next step in their relationship, whatever it might be called. Maybe he was an eternal optimist. It was more likely that the idea of meeting one Jackie Tyler, a legend that Rose was all too keen to tell tales of, was in all appearances such an insurmountable obstacle that he felt if he did meet her approval he could do anything. It was rather ironic then that in this case anything was quantified as becoming so brazen as to ask Rose Tyler out on a date.

And honestly, where on this green Earth did that idea come from? And why did it only come up when Rose invited him over to her mum's? These thoughts took up residence in John's mind, more so than the story that he had been given to rehearse before Jackie's Christmas party. As much as they caused him to daydream, these thoughts had free rent with no end to their lease in sight. Yet every part of him that wanted to take this leap also wanted to take two steps back. John hadn't known Rose for almost a year and nearly lost her twice to take the chance of losing her again. If he messed up with Rose, he risked never soaking up her precious smile or feeling the kindness in her soft hands ever again. And maybe that was just too much to risk.

Most people would look at the Powell Estate and consider it nothing to write home about. Take a look, but keep walking. And if John hadn't met Rose, the sickening realization that he would think the same settled into his stomach. Rose grew up here, with only her mother to guide her. He walked past a playground and wondered just how many times Rose hurt her ankle or scraped her knee until she reached the top of the jungle gym. And she did, he just knew it. She would keep climbing until she could sit at the top and claim queen of the mountain. How old was Rose when she felt brave enough to not only swing on the swing but jump off of it? How much cuter was her giggle when her favorite color was closely linked to her favorite crayon? What did Rose dream of when the world was a place that was much smaller and easier to conquer?

John was just thinking how much he would love to see some of Rose's childhood photos when he came up on her building and heard music so loud that it was a wonder he couldn't feel the building shake. He contemplated making a run for it and coming up with some excuse that Rose wouldn't ever believe. But he had a little gift for her, as it was Christmas. And he'd already come all this way. The next few days would be torture for him if he didn't see this through. There was also the enticement of a cute blonde watching him from her balcony.

“Oi you! It's about time you showed up!” Rose shouted at him and laughed.

“Is he here?” A head poked out onto the balcony and asked. It looked down. “That him?”

John froze. It was very clear to him that the woman that stepped out onto the balcony was Rose's mother, and the clue came not from her blonde hair but the way that her hand fell onto her hip in impatience in the same manner as her daughter. John wasn't certain how early Rose had lost her father. But in regards to her strength of will, just looking at the overbearing Jackie Tyler from the ground told him that it didn't matter. They were at least 50 feet up, but John could still feel the older Tyler's eyes sizing him up and passing judgment on him. The younger Tyler was doing nothing to help his case with her laughter, either.

Jackie turned to her daughter. “What's he standing there for? He's not-”

“No, mum. You're just scaring him.”

“Well don't just stand there! No fun to be had down there!” Jackie shouted at him.

If safe could be considered fun, there was every bit of fun to be had on the spot that John had planted himself on. As long as he wasn't about to be caught in a lie with Rose's mother he was perfectly peachy, thank you. Safe, party of one. His hands stuffed in his pockets were resolute. He wasn't moving. Except, one of those hands was also hugging Rose's Christmas gift for dear life. He couldn't give it to her from his little island of safety. It made his decision rather simple.

Knocking on the door was not quite so simple. John raised his hand in a tightly coiled fist about three times before the door flew open, leaving him to catch his balance. Before he could, something warm and peppermint-scented fell into his arms. His gangly, mindless limbs were left with a simple choice. And really, how could they refuse to wrap around something so warm and soft, that made a heart-melting squealing sound? They didn't. A shivering heat rushed to his cheek where the source of that delightful squealing sound kissed it. She wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Merry Christmas,” Rose whispered.

“Yup,” John squeaked, and let go of Rose's waist to comb his fingers through his hair (because that was really going to calm him down). “Um, what?”

She laughed at him. And he probably deserved it. “Come on, you,” She urged, and took his hand to lead him inside.

He didn't budge, and instead tightened his grip on her hand. “Or we could stay out here and chat, hm?”

“My mum won't bite, John.”

“Promise?”

John looked past the door frame, thinking that the pounding pop music beyond didn't inspire much confidence towards this notion. But no man ever won a woman's heart by standing in a doorway shaking like a leaf. He let Rose drag him inside, despite all of his instincts shouting at him to run in the other direction.

The moment that John walked in the door he felt the presence of both Tylers' decorating. Rose may not live in this flat any more. John wasn't quite certain where Rose lived. But part of her still lived in this little apartment. Something told him that the pink pillow clashing with the white leather couch wasn't Jackie's. He suspected that the very pink walls of a bedroom down the hall were also not Jackie's. But the pictures on the walls of a happy little girl (one with no front teeth) most certainly were.

“So, you going to introduce him or what, Rose?” Jackie trapped the pair of them in the hallway and prompted.

John's heart leaped into his throat, and pushed his hand forward. “John!” He croaked. Smooth. “John Ty- Smith! John Smith.” Even smoother. Would his charming grin be enough to offset a bit of his nervous energy?

As luck would have it, it didn't matter. “Jacks! You got something burning in here!” A male voice called from the kitchen. Jackie let go of John's hand in time for him to realize that his other was still attached to her daughter.

“See? Not so bad, is she?” Rose smiled.

“Easy for you to say. She's not after your head.”

“You're exaggerating.”

“Yeah? And you didn't tell her I might be a few years older?”

Rose pursed her lips and smiled. “What's it matter?”

She wouldn't quit giving him reasons to think she was perfect. He wouldn't care if he was a hundred years older than Rose. His heart didn't know any different. He'd never expected Rose to feel the same way.

John pulled Rose in until she was flush with him, until he captured her gaze. “Rose,” John murmured, but paused. God, did he ever love saying her name. “I want to tell your mother the truth. I don't think I can do this if I have to lie.”

“Lie about what?”

John turned around. Well, he thought turned around, but it probably had every appearance of a rabbit leaping out of the way of a snare. The snare in this case was one Jackie Tyler standing in her doorway with her arms folded and her brow arched. He _would_ have the worst luck.

“Nothing, mum,” Rose was quick to jump in and say. Perhaps she hoped her dismissive tone would be enough to suppress her mother's curiosity. She'd probably held this hope and had it dashed before. This evening was no different.

“Rose,” John whispered with a squeeze of her hand, and found the older Tyler's eyes glued to them. Nothing would get past this woman, certainly not a thinly veiled lie.

“Kitchen,” Jackie stiffened and pointed with a command that she _dared_ them to disobey. They were barely beyond the threshold when she spoke again. “Student, is he? Hm?”

“You told her I was a student?” John paled. It was a miracle he could stand with all of the blood draining from his face.

Jackie continued. “Never met one that wears tweed.”

“Mum, I can explain,” Rose stepped between them. John didn't want to ask why it would be necessary.

“Oh no, sweetheart. Think you've done enough talking. I want to hear what this one has to say. Go on then,” Jackie prompted him with a nod and refolded her arms.

Rose might have argued, John thought. She was one to fight. But she was also one to pick her battles. Evidently this was one she wouldn't fight. Their little facade fell quicker than a paper wall. For once John thought this a good thing. He felt his heart actually calming a little. How was he to build a stronger relationship with Rose if the one with her mother was based on a lie? How could he come to her later and- no. That thought wasn't even allowed to enter thought territory, not when the rabbit was still being stared down by the cougar before him.

“I'm not a student,” John sighed.

“I worked that bit out,” Jackie snorted back at him. While Rose's eyes were a blanket of comfort on his soul, her mother's were the clouds before a raging storm. And they bore into him in such a way that made him shift the weight on his feet several times before he spoke again.

“I'm a professor. Physics. Rose took one of my classes.”

“You took physics?” Jackie turned to the little mouse standing next to John and asked.

“I like him, mum, alright?” The little mouse next to him spoke up and stomped her foot at the cougar. “He's nice. And he's going to be around for a while, so you can either behave or we're leaving.”

John stood back, finding himself a little bit suffocated by the tension created by the two Tylers. He wanted to tell Rose to not get so flared up on his behalf, that he wasn't worth coming between the special relationship a parent had with their child. He wished that he had such problems. And was it maybe just a bit selfish that he felt warm with pride that Rose thought him important enough to her that she'd argue with her mother about it? Probably. He certainly felt the nerves and tension washing over him while watching Rose stand just in front of her mother to stare her down. She dared her mother to argue with her further.

He decided to cut through the tension. “I brought wine,” John held up a green bottle as though it could be his savior.

“Oh, well that's nice. Here Rose, go put it on the table with the others, yeah?” Jackie softened and smiled.

Rose threw her hands up in the air and turned tail out of the kitchen before turning back to yank the bottle of red wine from John's fingers. He might have been inclined to agree that her mother was an impossible creature. But there was a party to be had, and he watched Rose seriously contemplate the drinks on the drinks table. Liquid courage. Good idea.

“Oh no, don't think you're off the hook, mister,” Jackie called after him. “Help me with these. The bottoms are burnt.” She held up a tray of dinner rolls.

John did as he was told and sat down at the nearby table armed with a butter knife. Maybe Jackie didn't trust him with her daughter. But she trusted him enough to hand him a knife. It was a start, right?

“How old are you exactly?” Jackie wasted no time and jumped right in.

“33?”

“You're not certain? No wonder she told me to go easy on you.”

He could feel her eyes rolling from across the room. But he wouldn't be taken down so easily. “Look, Jackie, I-”

“Fancy my daughter? Yeah, I can see that. Plain as day.”

John felt his heart fall into his lap along with the dinner roll that he dropped. It couldn't be quite so obvious, could it? Either Jackie really was _that_ perceptive, or John wore his heart on his sleeve. He reached into his pocket for the little box containing Rose's Christmas gift and rubbed the leather with his thumb hoping that some semblances of hope and confidence could bleed through to his skin. This torture was for him.

“I've seen her heart broken first hand. I have no intentions of doing that to her,” John looked up and told Jackie. It was as bold as he was going to get that night. “These are done.”

“Take them to Astrid over there, on the buffet table,” Jackie replied, barely above a whisper.

It wasn't every day that John could say he nearly rendered a woman speechless. Only Jackie wasn't the one he cared to utilize this talent on. He really must wear his heart on his sleeve, he thought as he felt Jackie's stunned eyes on his back all the way out of the kitchen. Maybe it was good that she knew. She wouldn't be surprised then, if John actually worked up some courage later. He didn't want Jackie on his side, and wouldn't ask her to be. If this was how she reacted to a new man coming into her life after the likes of Jimmy Stone had been in it, maybe it was good of her to be so wary. When he began to peruse all of Rose's childhood photos all around the flat, he realized that he and Jackie could at least agree on two things: there was only one Rose, and she really was precious.

In his daydreams John imagined spending a quiet and intimate Christmas with Rose. Maybe when she said party she meant a small gathering, he'd thought (well, hoped, let's be honest). Oh, had he ever been fooling himself. By the time that John swam over to the drinks table, the fish that he was after was nowhere in sight. No wonder there were so many bottles of drinks laid out on display. He would need something to get through this.

John was made to be polite and pleasant for at least a couple hours while he clung desperately to his little glass of scotch. At least he could say of himself that he was really quite good at nursing a drink. But even when it was empty, John still pretended that the little glass was his shield, or perhaps his little fidget toy. He was glad for it, else he would rip the little box containing Rose's gift to shreds. Rose's friends and family weren't unpleasant, no. But maybe it was a little unfair that Jackie had already encouraged them to form an opinion of him, which he then had to make his best attempts at correcting. In some places he was successful, others he failed miserably.

And during all of this, John felt just a little bit like a pouting five year old, because the one person he came to spend time with kept slipping through his fingers. He wore his bright pink paper crown that she placed on his head because she helped him pop the cracker. And maybe he was just a little bit hopeful that wearing it would earn him some credits for later. It was rather appropriate then that it served as a sort of catnip for the other women at the party.

He noticed the mistletoe a good three and a half hours into the party. Was it his fault that he didn't think to look up when standing in a door frame? He might have been trained at least in his education to recognize patterns. Anyone who knew him well enough would know that he was also exceedingly scatterbrained. But he did pick up on this pattern, eventually. He was an idiot, of course. Oh, did he ever want to kick himself. No wonder Rose kept avoiding him. Every fifteen minutes or so (because stalking her at a party wasn't at all creepy) she could be found standing under this arch that had the mistletoe hanging from it. She would never stay too long. If someone walked towards her, sometimes a guy with a little bit too much beer and arrogance in his system, she was quick to walk away. And she never looked right at John, not until this time. She was looking right at him.

John imagined himself choreographing a ballet based on silent conversations. It was an easy distraction from thinking about the implications that wanted to run rampant through his mind. Rose smiled when met his gaze. So he set down his now empty glass of liquid courage, and began to walk. Just to be certain, he looked up at the top of the arch, and then back at Rose. Her grin grew that much wider. Minx! Did they really need a toxic plant to hide behind to dance this dance? A bit of introspection told him that yes, yes they did. He wouldn't dare argue. If Rose wanted him to bottle up a star for her, he would bring down the heavens if he could. It just so happened that in this one instance, what she wanted him to give her was something he wanted, too. Maybe Christmas wasn't so horrible after all.

He began to rehearse the event in his mind while he crossed the desert of Rose's living room. The term “rose colored glasses” was all too perfect in this instance. John knew that life was built on imperfect moments meant to be perfect. But this was one event that he wanted to be absolutely perfect. It had to be. Rose's lips were turning a shade between crimson and fuchsia from the two glasses of red wine that she'd had. He imagined her being more of a beer person. But this was good. Port would taste so much more delicious right off her lips. He'd seen it on the drinks table and imagined that if Rose was going to drink wine, she would look for the sweetest one there. He knew that her lips were soft. His right cheek would never be the same ever again, having been blessed by a Rose. John's thumb yearned to brush that juicy bottom lip while his fingers cupped her warm cheek. It had to be warm. There's no way it wasn't. She'd lean into his palm, probably without even thinking, seeking his touch. He'd never _not_ oblige. He would have her, right there. And then his thumb would be replaced by-

Someone else's lips. Right. There was an actual difference between dream and reality. That daydream had felt so real. It was so perfect, executed so well. But it wasn't real. Real was Rose's friend, John didn't care to remember his name, twirling her around in his arms and stealing John's kiss. John wasn't so smug that he couldn't admit the brilliance of the man's sneak attack. He also wasn't so mature that he was ready to rise above his feeling as though that was cheating. He'd been cheated. In that little moment, no material possession of John's was worth more than the kiss that was stolen right from under that mistletoe.

 

***

 

By the time that Rose finished raking Mickey over the coals, John was out of sight. And she pondered whether it was a good idea to track him down. He was probably already coming to his own conclusions. It wouldn't matter that Mick was completely pissed, well off his rocker. John's tender feelings wouldn't take that into account. Rose's wouldn't, she decided. This was the universe's way of paying her back for that day she ran out on John.

Verification of this fact came when Rose managed to weed her way through the crowded apartment a few minutes later to find John at the door of the kitchen with Astrid, who was cleaning off his now wine-stained shirt. She hoped then that John would look angry, maybe even broken that one of his precious white oxfords was now stained crimson across the chest. But no, he was _laughing_. Laughing! There was a conversation to go along with it, but there was too much going on for Rose to decipher it. It did involve Astrid pulling her mobile out from her purse and handing it to John, who nodded towards the door. They were headed out a moment later.

One misplaced kiss and their Christmas moment wasn't even salvageable? A word describing how angry Rose felt hadn't been created yet. The idiot made her wait all night before he cared to notice the mistletoe (that she'd put up, mind) she kept standing under. And then when she had the poor luck of having the moment ruined (which wasn't even her own fault), he bailed and ran off with someone else? It hadn't even been more than a few minutes- oh. It had been a half hour. Maybe that might have made it a bit more reasonable for John to swan off. Rose wasn't any less angry for it, however.

_Got yourself a date, yeah?_ She texted him.

_Took me a bit to work out how this works sorry. I hate texting._ He replied a whole twenty minutes later. _And I'm not going to be accused of typos. So it's taking longer._ His replies came in spurts, one sentence at a time. _Oh! There's the exclamation point! Does that mean I can use commas too? Wait there it is! Found it, I can use commas, Rose! Astrid says I'm going to run up your mobile charges by sending you this many texts, sorry! We're going out for a pint. See you later! Wait, see you later?_

Did she _want_ to see him later?

John started texting her every day from then on. And Rose decided that she liked calling him a lot better. At least then his banter could be framed in that warm, gravelly voice that she could listen to all day. This time she didn't really want to hear his voice, though. It was pretty irrational to be angry at him when he hadn't really done anything wrong. But he wasn't helping with his texts that week letting Rose know that he and Astrid were planning to go out on more dates. Rose thought John might know a thing or two about fire. If he wanted to put one out, throwing another log on it was probably not a good idea.

_Are you cross with me? It's Saturday and you're not here. I miss you._

Though it took her several hours to come to this conclusion, it ended up being those three words at the end that saw Rose at John's front door at midnight.

 

***

 

It was late, but John gave Rose her Christmas present that night when neither of them slept. He'd been keeping the damn thing in his pockets for the entire week. For the entire week it had been haunting him, reminding him of his gaffe, his failure to be brave. Since they were both up anyway, they were in his sitting room chatting when John plopped the little leather box on his coffee table in front of Rose.

“What's this?” Rose yawned.

“Your Christmas present,” John replied as he clawed his pyjama bottoms. If he could still his hands he wouldn't look nervous. “It's not anything new. I just want you to have it, because, well I don't know. It just feels right, like it-”

She shut him up with a hug that nearly sent them falling to the cushion beside him. John knew that Rose had already seen her gift before. That was the whole idea behind it. Rose knew that the plain little key that he'd put on a chain and given to her meant more to him than anything else he owned. To anyone else the idea would seem completely daft. He'd lost his mind, gone completely barmy, fallen off the rocker. But Rose understood. There were so few people in John's life that he entrusted with the knowledge of the little key that he gave to Rose. And even among them, Rose was the only person that hadn't thought him crazy when he told her it was the only thing connecting him to his past. It was his most important possession. He wanted Rose to have it. And knowing that she understood the significance of this gift was to him a gift in and of itself.

From then on, for some reason, Rose never asked if she could come over to John's flat. She was dreadfully impolite, and John was okay with this. Somebody ought to be. It was as though Rose took his key (that was not to his flat, mind) to mean his doors to her were always open. They may as well have been. The idea that it was a distinct possibility that Rose knew John couldn't ever say no to her didn't terrify him as much as it should have. Rose always came first, before anything (or anyone) else in his life. His life hadn't been much before she was in it, so it certainly didn't suffer for it.

Rose didn't ever want to talk about Astrid. John learned quickly that if he had any troubles, they would either be his own or shared with someone other than her. She told John that she was happy for him on a regular basis, making certain that she was a good friend. But beyond that, she didn't ever care to talk about John's growing relationship with the woman. He didn't question how Rose knew Astrid was a travel writer without him ever saying. So he didn't think twice about her already knowing Astrid was always out on weekends.

And since John had become busier during the weeks, Rose always showed up on the weekends. He never thought twice about this. He enjoyed her company, and missed her when it wasn't a Saturday or Sunday. Rose told him that she'd moved in with Mickey, the lucky bastard that had stolen his Christmas kiss. But she also told him that it was nice to get away from him every now and then. So once again, John didn't think twice when Rose started staying over at his on the weekends. They had a penchant for staying up late on Saturdays watching films, reading, or simply talking the nights away. For months on end it was perfectly innocent. This all changed one sweltering night in June. 


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lonely professor John Smith meets an enchanting student that he should fall head over heels for. But he fears that either their timing will never be right, or he’ll never be brave enough to truly open up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [allegoricalrose](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/)'s [AU prompt](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/post/111809505664/listen-were-crazy-close-we-talk-all-the-time), “Listen: we’re crazy close, we talk all the time, we say we love each other, and we sleep together most weekends. People we’re dating are bound to get the wrong idea.” 
> 
> This chapter wouldn't be remotely the same without [whatwecanfic](http://whatwecanfic.tumblr.com/)'s wonderful beta work. Thank you!!

_They had a penchant for staying up late on Saturdays watching films, reading, or simply talking the nights away. For months on end it was perfectly innocent. This all changed one sweltering night in June._

 

“It’s late, Rose,” John muttered as he answered the door late on a hot Wednesday night. The air that wafted in was even thicker than in the greenhouse that his flat had turned into.

“So? You weren’t sleeping,” Rose retorted all too quickly. “And you didn’t answer my texts. I was worried.”

John had cancelled his dinner plans with Astrid that afternoon when he realized that even Rose’s simple message of, “How’s your day?” was too difficult to answer. If he couldn’t manage to type up a simple response to this, filling up a couple hours with whole conversations at a nice restaurant was even more of an insurmountable task. After Astrid had bought his excuse of being too far behind his work (which also had the added benefit of being truthful), John thought it unwise to take his chances with Rose. He never responded to her, because he never came up with a good answer to her question. He had an answer, but telling Rose that his day was horrible because of what it marked would have her on the first bus to his flat. If he’d known that not answering yielded similar results, he might have just told her the truth. There was no point in offering excuses to someone who could see right through him as Rose could.

“How do you know I wasn’t sleeping?” John asked with a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.

Rose nodded at the pen he was twirling between his fingers. “You only wear your specs when you're working. You're still working on that grant proposal, yeah? You need to sleep some time, John.”

“I sleep! Sometimes. I slept on Monday. I'll get sleep.”

“You weren't planning on sleeping tonight,” She pointed at his coffee table in the sitting room behind him, which had his laptop and an array of paperwork arranged around it. “Come on then. If you're going to stay up, might as well have company, yeah?” She said this as she stepped past him in the doorway. “Love the look by the way. Jim jams and specs? Very sexy. Have you lost your shirt?”

John was made immobile by the sight of Rose's tongue peeking between her teeth. For one glorious, inexcusable moment, he imagined being those teeth. It was too short a moment to distract him from her question, which answered itself when her arm brushed against it as she sat down on the couch. She didn’t think too much on how damp it was along the hem as she picked it up to move out of her way. It could easily be explained away by the heat smothering his poorly insulated house. But he hadn’t been wearing the damp papers or keyboard that Rose’s eyes scanned over after she wriggled and shifted into a comfortable position on his couch.

A slight twinge of panic settled into John's gut. His sock feet slipped on the wooden floor as he rushed over to the table to sweep the nest of papers into his arms. “Tea! I spilled a few drops of tea!” John exclaimed.

“Tea is brown,” Rose argued in a whisper.  

It was bad enough that Rose had to show up when John already felt vulnerable, even worse that she knew him well enough to not simply leave him be. It must have already been too late. John considered the possibility that even if Rose didn't know what this day marked when she came over, she could see the anguish worn on his face. Though her arms were crossed, the eyes that met his were the same shade of hot cocoa that they were when he first told her about Joan. He trusted them more now than he did then. But this didn't make it any easier to reveal to her what state he'd found himself in just before she'd knocked on his door. John's hands shook as they clutched the stack of slightly damp papers to his chest. They betrayed just how exhausted he felt.

“I'm a bit late, aren't I?” Rose hummed a sigh.

“Late for what? I'm fine.” It was possible that the gentle crackling in his voice gave him away right there. John lost his grip on the papers, which sailed to the ground like maple seeds in spring.

“Today is the day that she disappeared, isn't it?” Rose's arms uncrossed so that she could pat the space on the couch next to her. John couldn't speak, for all of the effort that it took to hold all of his limbs together. He fell into the couch like a sack of potatoes. “You'll forgive me, won't you, for looking into it? When you told me about her, you never said the date that she... Does Astrid know, about her?”

John sank into the lumpy couch cushions further, hoping perhaps that they could swallow him up. He stuck to the seat and grumbled at it while he took his specs off to throw them onto the coffee table. Anything would be better than letting Rose see the cascade of tears that she'd interrupted in her insistence to keep him company. He rubbed his eyes, combing through the field of angry tresses on his head.

He moved to hiding his eyes behind his clammy fingers when he spoke. “She doesn't even know Joan exists. Existed. After you found that picture, I locked away all of her things in the basement.”

“It was because of me? Oh, John..”

“Rose,” John sighed. “I didn't want to share this with anyone. I wish I'd packed it all away ages ago.”

“I know you don't mean that,” She chided, and let her hand sneak onto his thigh. “Should I go?”

And that was it right there. She had him. Of course she already knew the answer to her question. It was a kinder way of calling him a stubborn idiot, which she'd be right about. She saw right through him, as always. He'd done so well for himself, he thought. He'd managed to keep his lip from quivering by trapping it between his teeth. Maybe his red eyes could be explained away by his lack of sleep over the past couple weeks.

“Come here.” She whispered.

He obliged, and dropped his head into her lap. He allowed himself to close his eyes and savor the feeling of her fingers running through his hair. Maybe letting her stay was innocent enough. John was in pain, and Rose was his best friend. Maybe she seemed disinterested enough in the way she wiped away his tears with her thumb. Even how she began to comb his hair back to some manner of relevant neatness with her fingers was pure-hearted enough. She didn't ask anything of him, and for the longest expanse of time all he could hear were his own soft sighs and his struggles to fill his aching lungs with air properly. And maybe it was just barely possible that if John hadn't felt the warmest of shivers when she planted a chaste kiss on his temple then that would be innocent enough too. The way that his heart yanked at his chest begging to be freed when their eyes met as he calmed down was most certainly not innocent, however. And they both knew it. John was thankful that Rose was just as keen as he was to sweep this notion under the rug of their little moment of bliss, however. He was so foolish, and too tired to care.

“You're a right git, you know that?” Rose told him softly. His silence was a good enough affirmation. “You can't do this to yourself, by yourself. Let somebody in. And keeping this from Astrid, when she's got to know that something's wrong? It's not fair.”

John snorted. “You don't like her.” The words left a sour note in his mouth that made him grimace.

“It's not about me. And that's not fair. She’s been a client of mum’s for years. I never said that I liked her.”

She lifted her hands from his shoulder and hair when he shifted onto his back. Rose froze as though she'd been caught. Suddenly his head was in her lap, even though it had been there for damn near an hour without either of them realizing. Suddenly the clammy and warm skin on his neck and shoulders were touching her skin.

“It is about you,” John retorted as he took her hand to twine their fingers. The key he gave her after Christmas jingled on her wrist. “It's always about you, isn't though, Rose?” He’d caught her, and allowed himself a brief moment to revel in it. “You're right, I shouldn't keep it to myself. And I haven't, not really. I've given pieces of myself to you, Rose.” He could see from his vantage point her chest quivering that much faster with each of his passing words. “Pieces that I would never give anybody else. So I don't want to, and can’t share them with anyone else but you. I don’t want anyone to have them but you.”

There was nothing graceful about the way that Rose scurried out from under John's head. Their sweaty skin was hopelessly bonded. She was looking at him like a frightened rabbit in front of a hungry wolf.

“It’s getting late, John,” Rose reminded him. “Gone past midnight.”

John let those words float past his ears as he gave chase, and knelt before her. It didn't matter that there was at least a foot of couch cushion separating them. He may as well have been right in Rose's face. It had been too long since their last game of cat and mouse. And he'd forgotten how much he enjoyed being the predator.

At first he hadn’t been certain where his surge of bravery had come from. It wasn’t the best moment for a thought of Joan to enter his mind. But this day wasn’t one for best moments. He’d lost Joan on it. It came without a warning and left without a trace. All that John left himself with after exhausting other possibilities was that Joan had left him behind. He built a life around her, and she left it. She left him feeling empty. Maybe John was just a little bit tired of feeling empty. He decided that only kind of warmth he wanted to feel just then was what he always saw in Rose’s eyes. Maybe they gave him just a bit of confidence to believe he could start building again.

“Listen, John,” Rose bleated, and held her hand in front of her. He captured it, to keep it - or her - from getting away. He'd lost too much. Suddenly the thought of losing her too, losing his chance with her was more than he could bear.  But the words still cascaded from her mouth, “We’re crazy close, we talk all the time-”

“We say we love each other,” John interrupted. It took him a long and breathless moment to even register the words he’d just spoken, quite possibly out loud.

Rose tried to free her hand from his, but instead he trapped the other one in his as well. “I've never said.” She shook her head as though that would be what convinced him.

He caught his key that she wore on her wrist in his thumb and pressed it into her palm. “Does it need saying?”

Oh, if John could take a picture of Rose's face in that precise moment he absolutely would. That moment right there, when her eyes sparkled both with adoration and anger, was worth all of his grief and heartache. He would endure so much just to see the anger taking over the adoration, to see her daring him to move any closer to her. He didn't need to. All he needed to do was smile just a little to see a bit of hesitation sprinkled onto her expression.

He might have been just a little bit cocky. “We sleep together most weekends.” He added to her list, and looked down at his legs wrapped in pyjamas.

“People we're dating are bound to get the wrong idea.”

“I suspect they already have.”

This moment was going to end, because that was his luck, and Rose expected him to be the righteous gentleman. His luck was always missing a chance with Rose. And maybe he was just a little bit tired of it. Perhaps it would be easier for her to run. Maybe there was a reason history repeated itself. It was settled then. He'd had a moment of weakness, and the right thing for Rose to do would be to run home and pretend that none of this had happened. And as long as John could accept all of the above facts, he thought it perfectly okay to end this fleeting moment with one of bliss. He kissed her.

 


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lonely professor John Smith meets an enchanting student that he should fall head over heels for. But he fears that either their timing will never be right, or he’ll never be brave enough to truly open up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For [allegoricalrose](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/)'s [AU prompt](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/post/111809505664/listen-were-crazy-close-we-talk-all-the-time).  
>   
> Once again, a million thank you's to the wonderful [whatwecanfic](http://whatwecanfic.tumblr.com/) for her amazing beta work.

_He'd had a moment of weakness, and the right thing for Rose to do would be to run home and pretend that none of this had happened. And as long as John could accept all of the above facts, he thought it perfectly okay to end this fleeting moment with one of bliss. He kissed her._

 

John’s breath trembled over Rose’s lips. His eyes were clamped shut. Rose had to keep hers open to make certain without any doubt that she was awake. Her thumbs crept up his cheeks and smoothed over the crows feet that then framed his eyes. She didn't want him to fret over this moment. His night wouldn't be totally wrecked if he had one victorious moment to draw strength from later.

Silence rippled over the blanket of heat that quickly spread between them. All that managed to slice through it was John releasing a trembling breath onto her lips just before his met them. She was greeted by the briny taste of his nervousness. Her back shifted on its own to allow him to wrap his arm around it. There were no prying eyes of party guests to witness this kiss. Was the kiss still stolen if they both wanted it? Her hand grasped the back of his head and kneaded the damp and sticky brown locks through her fingers. If her other hand was a door, his heart was pounding on it to get out. Rose was breathless, and listening to her own heart ringing in her ears. She basked in a moment of hesitation before pulling away, and managed to swallow a moan when he nipped her lip in the process.

“We shouldn't do this,” Rose whispered into his cheek after nuzzling his freckled nose. He hadn't shaved in a few days, so his stubble was rough on her lips and curious fingers.

“I know,” He sighed into her ear, sending tremors of warmth down her spine.

Rose felt the loss of skin contact with John acutely when he sat back and relinquished her personal space. He sent a cool breeze past her as he shifted. She might tolerate the heat a bit better if it meant being close to him again. Of course by close she wasn’t thinking about cuddling. Rose was already missing the message that came with that kiss, and the yearning gaze that they shared. She liked to think that the look of longing belonged to her once, as she’d seen it before. But it wasn’t hers. Rose hadn’t gotten it or the kiss honestly. She wasn’t looking forward to running into Astrid if John told her what happened. He wouldn't hurt anyone, and the idea that she'd be the reason that he might made her stomach turn.

“So what do we do now?” Rose asked, and took his closest hand into both of hers. This much was still innocent enough despite their impassioned embrace, the evidence of which still lingered on her moistened lips.

John looked down and laced his fingers with one of her hands. When he looked back up his dark cinnamon eyes burrowed into hers in the same way he'd study one of his research samples, looking for clues. It made Rose feel exposed to him in a way she'd never felt when fully clothed. She’d been a tiny bit proud of herself for giving him a burst of confidence up until she saw the cocky look on his face and swore he was listening for her quickened heartbeat. Didn't he understand that they'd done something wrong? He had to. But then why was one corner of his lips tugging at his mouth just slightly, like he knew something she didn't?

“What do you want to do?” He finally whispered, after using her hands wrapped around his to pull her just a bit closer to him. He wasn't going to bite, he was telling her,  That wasn’t what she was afraid of.

Rose shook her head. Oh, she had things that she wanted to do, things that she had been wanting to do since she first laid eyes on the dorky professor. This was all before she saw that when the beginnings of summer kissed the skin on his face it brightened his chocolate freckles to that same shade of cinnamon in his eyes. It was well before the feeling of his stubble grazing her lips sent shivers down her spine. She wanted to look past his bobbing adam's apple at all the vast and unexplored territory. Rose wanted that to be okay, to explore with her fingers as well, and not worry about trespassing.  

“That's not fair,” Rose answered, and clamped down on his hand.

“Is any of this?” John was quick and quiet in his reply. Now his eyes were closing in on hers again. And fuck, he wasn't even listening for her heartbeat anymore. The way that his gaze drilled into hers, it was as though he could predict the precise cadence of its beats. “Tell me what to do, Rose. Where do we go from here?”

“Guessing backwards isn't an option?” She offered. “You’re going to tell me that time doesn't move in that direction, yeah?”

He grinned. “Well, theoretically, time could move in any given direction, maybe even the same direction more than once. Fascinating stuff, that. But this isn't about time, is it? It's about choices, and which one you want to make.”

Rose paused. She opened her mouth to ask him why he was so eager to find out what her interests were when he smiled at her. It was the same sort of smile he employed when he was nearing the completion of one of his complex equations.

“A minute ago you were keen to let me down easy, because it's the right thing to do. Now's not the right time, not the right night. And then I kissed you, Rose, because I worry that it'll never be the right time. What did it change? You're scared, knowing that what we feel is real?” He didn't wait for her to answer. “So what are you going to do about it?”

“But you agreed with me, John. We shouldn't be doing this.”

“Yeah, I did. You’re right, we shouldn’t do this, not until we talk about it. And I know you don't want to, because it would be easier to sweep all this under the rug. Once we talk about it, Rose, we might need to do something about it. Or maybe we can ignore it, but that won’t make how we feel go away,” John said, while clutching his key that she wore between his fingers. “I want to be with you properly, Rose Tyler. I want to share more than just books, films and laughs with you. This might be the worst timing, but waiting won’t change that. I’m tired of waiting.”

“You're placing an awful lot of trust in me.”

John leaned in and touched his forehead to hers. “I trust you because I felt it, Rose. I'm cocky enough to believe that I know what will make you happy.” And then the cocky bastard stole a chaste kiss. His humming grin spread across her lips. “Alright, if you need some time to think about it, that’s fine. Go ahead and go home to think about it. Take all the time you need, Rose. My feelings aren’t going to change. You always know where to find me.”

“But then you'll be alone,” Rose replied as she stood up, considering his offer.

“No, not really. Not anymore,” He said, and smiled so softly at her.

As Rose walked out his front door into the night, John stood tall.

 

***

 

Letting Rose Tyler walk out his front door that night was perhaps one of the more objectionable things that John ever had to do, when all he wanted to do was carry her upstairs to his bedroom and show her he indeed knew how to make her happy. He couldn't allow himself to love her free spirit while also tying it down. Rose had to make her own choices. The sun had set on their previous relationship, John felt. All he could do now was wait as a songbird would to sing for the sunrise. He was quite certain she wouldn't make him wait too long, because if those little kisses told him anything they told him that she so desperately wanted more. Rose was a rare and beautiful bird, and John would consider himself one lucky little sparrow to earn her love through honest means. So he would wait.

He didn't get any work done that night. But he didn’t stain any more shirts or papers with his tears, either. He actually got some sleep. Even if it wasn't the hottest night of the year, if it was perhaps the coldest night of winter, his warmed heart would serve as the best blanket. Rose would never abandon him. If he wasn't right about anything else he'd learned that night, he was completely certain of this.

John knew that part of what he'd done that night was wrong. It didn’t matter how right it felt to kiss Rose. He was dating someone when his heart belonged to another. And as long as its owner was going to make him wait, he was determined to right the situation on his end. It was a lot easier said than done. Once he'd made Astrid cry with his honest words, he felt that doing what was right had ended up being righteously horrible. Talking to Rose would have made him feel like less of a heart crushing arsehole, but that was the one thing he couldn't do.

In fact, when it had nearly been three weeks, John stopped counting the days he hadn't heard from Rose. He’d thought that his confidence in his actions would never falter, no matter how much of a jerk they made him. But Rose had never made any promises. Feeling for someone and being with them were two entirely different choices. Maybe Rose didn't have as much of a choice where her feelings were concerned, but she did in regards to how she dealt with them. When John didn't hear from her he began to wonder if she'd made a choice.

No. He wasn't going to doubt Rose, not ever. He'd doubted her before, and chosen to believe that she'd abandoned him, or that he'd caused her to leave, maybe even scared her away. Not this time. No, this time John chose to believe that Rose needed a while to let it all sink in. This time John was determined to believe that the reason Rose never called or texted or showed up at his flat was she needed time to make the transition they were going through. As much as John missed her, as much as his heart ached for her, he refused to believe that she'd just left him.

This didn't make the wait any easier. Not knowing when Rose's return would come ate away at his nerves bit by bit as each day passed. His work suffered. A student in one of his classes got his test back with a doodle of Rose scrawled in the margins. Thankfully John had gotten his grant proposal in, and his research project was safe a week later. But every young blonde student he watched taking notes in his courses was a stinging reminder that Rose hadn't come back to him yet. Yet. He expected her to sneak into one of his classes again and grin at him until he noticed her and then he'd completely cock up anything he'd been planning on saying. He wished that would happen instead of having to mark additional Roseless days off his calendar. The word Roseless became the most depressing one that he'd ever thought up.

A different John – one that hadn't left the door to his heart open for Rose to step inside – might have given up after a few weeks passed. He wasn't going to bother Rose. He was going to wait, because he told her that he would. Every day during his office hours he would sit at his desk, pull up her number on his mobile and simply stare at it. Sometimes he would speak to it as if it was her. This day, the one that marked the third week (not that he was counting), was one of those days.

“I promised you I'd wait, Rose,” John told the lifeless gray screen on his mobile. His head lay on his desk, its resolve just weak enough to weigh it down. “But that doesn't mean I want to. I miss you, Rose.”

“So I’ve been replaced by a phone, then?” Her voice replied.

John’s heart began pumping at a hummingbird’s pace in an instant. He dropped his mobile into his thankfully empty tea mug with a pronounced clink. He’d been massaging the plastic casing of the device with his thumb in the same way that he wanted to with Rose’s - but he hadn’t been so careless as to actually dial her, right? Then again, even if he had, his phone wasn’t supposed to carry that familiar peachy fragrance of Rose’s favorite conditioner (not that he knew anything about that). His mobile also couldn’t turn his chair around, nor return the memory of Rose’s warm, soft lips on his.

 


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lonely professor John Smith meets an enchanting student that he should fall head over heels for. But he fears that either their timing will never be right, or he’ll never be brave enough to truly open up to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that this last chapter is **NSFW**.
> 
> For [allegoricalrose](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/)'s [AU prompt](http://allegoricalrose.tumblr.com/post/111809505664/listen-were-crazy-close-we-talk-all-the-time).
> 
> Another round of thank you's to the amazing and lovely [whatwecanfic](http://whatwecanfic.tumblr.com/) for all her help and inspiration with this fic!

_“I promised you I'd wait, Rose,” John told the lifeless gray screen on his mobile. His head lay on his desk, its resolve just weak enough to weigh it down. “But that doesn't mean I want to. I miss you, Rose.”_

_“So I’ve been replaced by a phone, then?” her voice replied._

_John’s heart began pumping at a hummingbird’s pace in an instant. He dropped his mobile into his thankfully empty tea mug with a pronounced clink. He’d been massaging the plastic casing of the device with his thumb in the same way that he wanted to with Rose’s - but he hadn’t been so careless as to actually dial her, right? Then again, even if he had, his phone wasn’t supposed to carry that familiar peachy fragrance of Rose’s favorite conditioner (not that he knew anything about that). His mobile also couldn’t turn his chair around, nor return the memory of Rose’s warm, soft lips on his._

 

 

Surprise drew the stale office air from John's lungs the moment he opened his eyes to the belle of his dreams grinning against his trembling lips. His arms hooked around Rose's waist to pull her into his lap before she got any ideas of disappearing again. He bit back the urge to pepper her with questions like what had taken her so long and where they were going from here. He instead indulged himself with another kiss, and another, and another, until he felt his lungs aching and begging for relief. Oh, but the sweet taste of her lip gloss on his tongue, the tickle of her soft blonde locks against his cheek, and the crisp flowery notes of her perfume teasing his nose invigorated him.

“Hi,” Rose whispered into his neck as he crushed her in a hug.

“I missed you,” John confessed.

Her trembling, nearly breathless giggle against the collar of his oxford shirt sent a shiver down his spine. “I know, I'm late.”

“Well, we are, um, a tad bit behind on our books, I think. Missed a few Saturdays.”

“I know.” She left a little peck on the join of his jaw and neck before pulling back to look at him. “I'll make it up to you, yeah?”

“That doesn't matter, as long as all this wasn't to let me down easy,” he replied, punctuating these words with a nervous smile and a tight grip on her waist. The cocktail of hope and uncertainty that was flooding his brain might have made him slightly tactless.

Rose smacked his shoulder. “I would have come round much sooner if I was going to do that to you, don't you reckon?” She didn't wait for an answer. “I really wanted to see you. I just needed some time.”

John let his hand snake under Rose's blouse so he could rub her back in soothing circles. He thought to himself that he was soothing her, but he was really calming his own nerves. Just a bit of hesitation had settled in his throat now that they were so close. He couldn’t help but notice how she wore a blouse instead of a shirt and a denim skirt in place of jeans. Her intoxicating perfume and the two unbuttoned buttons on her blouse made it difficult to focus. John was a grown man. Rose deserved his undivided attention, so he intended to give it.

“That's quite alright,” he soothed as he turned his chair around to brace it against the desk. He was wary of its durability after it groaned at him a third time.

“I had to find a new place before I could... That took a bit of time.”

He swallowed and smiled at her resolve, made that much more endearing by the nerves shaking her words just a little. “That's quite alright,” he repeated. “Are we... alright, Rose?” Anticipation held his next breath captive.

In that little moment John felt that Rose's answer was like the blood that his heart needed to get pumping. Rose was like a flame, and he’d been afraid to get too close. Now he was closer than ever, practically smoldering. Oh, he was so close! He could feel her love igniting him through her gaze reaching out to his. Waiting for her to relieve him was torture.

As ridiculous as it seemed, John half prepared himself for rejection when he saw Rose's lips break into a trembling pout. He attempted a deep breath that became a hiccup and clamped his eyes shut for a beat. When he opened them, Rose had let her face fall into her hands, and oh, god, she really was letting him down easy. _But then why was she nodding?_

“Yeah,” Rose squeaked.

“What?” John croaked back. Shock sucked all the eloquence out of his voice.

“Yes,” she hissed.

“Yes?”

“Yes!”

John picked Rose up out of the chair and swung her about in his arms as he released a breath he'd been holding since before her answer came. It fell out into a series of laughs that made his lungs ache with pleasure. As he crushed her in his arms and nuzzled her face he concluded that the salty tears kissed off her cheeks had never tasted so delicious.

“You're sure?”

Rose answered first by looking into his eyes. Her expression could have been fathomless if it was an ocean. Oh, but the waters would be so clear. Her eyes glistened still as she cupped his cheek and nodded. He leaned into her palm, seeking the gentle warmth of her touch that he hungered and ached for.

“Yeah,” Rose croaked, offering him additional relief.

“Rose, I-” John began, feeling his heart fill so much it began to overflow.

She put a finger to his lips and interrupted him. “Do you trust me, John?”

John closed his eyes and let a deep breath fill his lungs with anticipation as he nodded to her. Before he could open his eyes, Rose leaned in to him, and crushed his lips under the weight of her passion. Faint notes of a strong coffee trickled onto John's tongue as Rose's sneaked past his lips. He felt her shiver when he moaned into her mouth. He arched into her when her nails raked up his back through his oxford. John broke their kiss with a gasping hiss as he felt his trousers constricting the growing swell of his erection.

“Rose,” John pleaded as she began assaulting his neck with wet kisses. She was on a mission, it seemed. And bloody hell, he did find it exciting. “Let's go home, hm?”

Rose released a well loved bit of skin on his neck from the grips of her teeth. “I need you, John. Will you have me?”

He froze, and let his hands fall from hugging the dips in her waist. Her lips were moist and glistening as she spoke. Her sparkling whiskey-colored eyes were pleading him, but this time he found them difficult to read. How could he tell her that she'd had him all along, that he'd never have any intentions of letting her go?

“Of course, Rose,” he murmured, and gave her tempting lips a kiss. He had to follow it with a deep breath to keep his eyes from releasing all of the emotions that were welling up. “Of course I'll have you. I-”

“Here.”

He got a slight hint of what she'd meant when her delicate fingers freed his neck of his gray silk tie. Just as he opened his mouth to protest, her lips were there to hush him. John was rendered dizzy and speechless by the time she released his lips with a pop a minute later. Nobody was quite as adept at stealing the words from John's mouth as Rose was. John worried while her fingers dashed down his oxford popping its buttons. Though his office door was closed, it could open at any moment. And John couldn't help but get the feeling that his wood-paneled walls had eyes and ears. A gulp later, she was pulling his shirt out of his trousers and shrugging it off his shoulders with little effort.

“Rose, this isn't a good idea,” John protested while Rose sighed and swept her hands up his bare chest. There was only one part of him that had no concerns about them stripping in his office. Luckily it couldn't speak. Yet he began to wonder if that mattered when it was showing its appreciation for every kiss and gentle caress she gave him.

After reacquiring John's attention with a wicked grin, Rose moved straight to his belt. Her hands were so perilously close to his growing erection that he nearly jumped out of his skin when they merely brushed it in the process of removing his belt. It fell to the floor with a pronounced clink.

“It was a good idea a long time ago. I don’t want to miss any more chances,” Rose finally replied while unbuttoning her blouse.

“Here? In my office? Rose, I would rather do this this properly. Wouldn't take long to get back to my place. We could order a-”

“It's okay, We've waited long enough, don't you think?" she hummed back to him, a sweet song that fell on his ears like honey.

Between watching her reveal the hidden treasures beneath her top and the weight of her words grounding his heart to hers, Rose had him. His eyes couldn't decide where to settle. Maybe his hands could make that choice for him, if they’d just stop trembling so fiercely. When her lips moved south and grazed his chest just above his heart, John may as well have melted into the floor. Could she feel, behind those candy lips, just how desperately his heart was beating at its cage? A grin tickling his thin smattering of chest hair suggested that maybe she did. It was just enough to distract him from where one of her hands was moving.

“You know, you're really cute when you're nervous,” Rose whispered as her hand dipped under the waistband of his pants to cup his hip.

His hips bucked into her hand before he could stop himself. He couldn't even get a hold of himself, because he imagined Rose getting there first. It became impossible to tell which was throbbing harder, his heart in throat or his cock beneath Rose's palm.

“You were so brave that night, John,” Rose told him as her fingers worked at the buttons to his pinstriped trousers.

“Rose,” John groaned.

“I know it must have been hard for you, yeah? It felt so wrong leaving you that night.” She spoke these words as she shimmied out of her denim skirt, and then wrapped her arms about his neck. All that then separated her sex from his were her pink lace knickers and his ragged, bright blue underpants. “And I couldn't ring you or come round, because I wouldn't be able to stop myself.” He held her close, and it was all he could do to keep from falling with her to the floor. “So this is me, John, not stopping myself, finishing what we started.”

John didn't want to make any arguments against her logic, no matter how much Rose's plans contradicted all of his daydreams about their first time making love. Then again, his entire history with Rose, their whole relationship contradicted all of his daydreams. John had been so lost, steering himself in all of the wrong directions. Yet Rose was always right there to guide him back onto the right path. And here she was offering him an adventure that couldn't be had in one of the books they'd read (mostly because she wasn't in any of them). Then John thought that maybe making love in his office wouldn’t be as bold as telling Rose no.

John's wardrobe-sized office was a victim of his inability to clean or organize a space. John hadn’t seen the mahogany surface of his desk since he inherited it from the office’s previous occupant. Ridding it of clutter like paperwork, empty beakers, and chewed pencils had been a bothersome task. When Rose made this task look simple, John decided to busy himself with kicking off his trainers and freeing his ankles of his trousers. She distracted him with her salacious grin as she gently pushed him onto his own desk.

“It's just you and me," she whispered while moving to straddle his hips.

John's heart overflowed with joy, and buried a single tear beneath a deep and lingering kiss. He followed it with a trail of kisses down to her neck and behind her ear that earned him a hushed moan. Knowing that he could hold Rose close now was the sort of encouragement that sent both his heart and his fingers racing. He could caress her newly exposed skin, and kiss a little mole dotting her shoulder. He could let his fingers dance over the lace of her bra before cupping the delicate mound of flesh it protected in his hand. His ears could soak up the hushed moan she rewarded him with when his hand slipped under her bra. And he could make her gasp by bringing her peak to a pucker with his quick thinking fingers sneaking under the lace fabric. But he couldn't remove a girl's bra one-handed. As it turns out, he needed her help with that one.

Rose had revealed to him vast expanses of unexplored skin. But John had spent months on end admiring Rose's female form, being tortured by her silky skin and gentle curves that he couldn't touch. He'd like to consider himself a perfect study already. He could close his eyes and paint a masterpiece of her beauty. He'd capture every dip in her slender frame, paint all of her goosebumps from her breasts to her calves, and use as many shades of pink necessary to bring color to her ripe blush. As it turns out, John's imagination had been fairly accurate in filling in the gaps where his knowledge of Rose anatomy was lacking. But there was nothing more beautiful to him than her being so bold as to bare herself to him in so public a setting.

Touch had been a taboo in their relationship in recent months, up until Rose sauntered into John's office that afternoon. He might have lamented a little at the loss of a perfect heat to make love in the last time they'd met. His office was perpetually cold and coated in a thick blanket of dust and paperwork. There was nothing remotely romantic about it, except that his beloved was there in his arms. He was captive to her every desire, and wondered if it coincided with his craving to explore every inch of her skin.

His hands were like butterflies fluttering over the subtle swells of her breasts. If her little moans and deepening kisses were anything to go by, John supposed that Rose didn't seem to mind. Her wandering lips left his skin sizzling in their wake. There was no hesitation at all in her caresses. This Rose that massaged his hip and sneaked a hand to his bum beneath his pants was far more adventurous than the one he'd known before.

When she left his lap to slither out of her knickers, John thought that it might have been easier to work through string theory in his head than stay calm. The notion was blown clear out of the water when he found himself absentmindedly lifting his hips to help her ease him out of his pants. As she stood there before him, she may as well have been a lioness that just caught her prey. And with the way that she licked her teeth after she tossed his last garment aside, she looked ready to devour him.

“Rose, I.. maybe we should slow down, do you think?” John stammered.

She didn’t immediately rejoin him on the desk. Rose's eyes cruising along his naked body were doing nothing to alleviate his nerves. A brief moment lasted a lifetime as she examined him. This would be a time that John found her impossible to read, naturally. What was she thinking as she scanned his legs? Too hairy? Would she ask about the scar on his abdomen that she traced with her fingers and a curious glare? Were his muscles too modest? Too much chest hair? Not enough? And why, he dared wonder, did her eyes widen as they fell on his cock? He didn't want to know, he decided (except that he so desperately did). Just a bit of relief, a kind word or a gentle touch, that's all John needed. Well, at that precise, incredibly long moment that's all he needed.

“I'd much rather speed things up,” Rose answered, voice low and gravelly. She chewed on her lip and looked away.

His heart wasn't the only organ pounding when he finally thought to catch a glimpse of a little patch of chocolate curls between her thighs. Feeling caught, John's eyes flew up to her face, and seeing how pink it was turning had his hands racing to join them.

“You were all I could think about,” Rose continued, and ran her fingers through her hair as she averted his gaze. He faintly heard her attempt at a deep breath, but it came out quivering like a kitten in the rain. “I'd be lying in bed, John, thinking about _you_ -” Rose shuddered and shook her head. “I wanted it to be _you_ lying there with me, holding me, and..” She squeaked when he reached out to her and pulled her back towards the desk, her legs between his. “I'm just a bit.. I need-”

“I love you.”

John gasped and went slack-jawed as he came to realize what he'd just said. Sitting starkers on his own work desk in a little corner of his cluttered office opposed John's treasured fantasy of expressing his love for Rose for the first time. How could he help himself, though, when Rose wore such anxiety and need on her shoulders? All he knew was his Rose (oh, and did that ever sound nice in his head, _his_ Rose) needed comforting. And what words could put her at ease more than the ones carved so deep onto his heart?

“Oh no, oh god no, Rose,” John bleated when tears began to stain her mascara. Too soon, not the right timing, he couldn't say which. But he mentally patted himself on the back for really cocking things up this time regardless. “Please don't cry. I didn't mean to.. we were just moving so fast.. and you looked-”

“I love you too, you plum,” she interrupted him and smiled. It took several kisses and another smile for him to register that what she'd said and that she'd even smiled in the first place.

Rose was never more beautiful than when she smiled, no matter the reason. But being a part of the reason made John's heart flutter in his chest. Her grin quickly opened up into a breathless chuckle. He felt weightless, seeing her this happy, like he could float away while holding her close. But just looking at her, even if she was tearing up, made him feel like he could fly. He had no way of knowing it beforehand, but this elation that made him feel like he could burst was just what he'd been craving. And if all he needed to do to feel it was make his Rose smile, it would become his mission in life to make her happy as often as he could.

John sighed as he let Rose slip through his fingers so she could walk around to the other side of the desk. He watched her toss a few discarded articles of clothing to get at her purse beneath them. John might have been older than Rose, but as she walked back over to him clutching a little foil packet in her fingers he felt much more like a horny teenager, having not even considered protection.

“You know, when you blush it highlights those gorgeous freckles,” Rose whispered while climbing back onto the desk to settle in his lap. “I don't want to wait any longer.”

“I wanted to spoil you a little at least,” John protested even as her teeth ripped open the condom packet.

She kissed his pout away. “Not worried about getting caught any more, then?”

John was very sure that Rose had asked him a question right there. But with his heart ringing in his ears he couldn't have heard it, not with his cock encased in the warmth of her palm. His heart's rhythm pulsed gently into her hand. He thought a groan of her name might have slipped past his open lips, but it could have also come out as a swear, he noted as she gave him a couple of careful strokes. Her giggle hinted at the latter. All he knew was that it was a cruel trick on the minx's part, because now he wanted the deeper, more intense (and very damp, if his leg was a good judge) heat enveloping him.

“I am, but, oh, Rose..” He held his breath and stiffened as she rolled on the condom.

“It's just the two of us,” Rose whispered into his ear.

John's whole body quaked when he thought about just how right she was. Perhaps she meant to ease his worries about being walked in on. But he couldn’t help but think she might have also been referring to themselves. He was done with their own fears conspiring to keep them apart. It was an absolute rubbish notion to begin with. Not baring his soul to Rose when his heart had wanted to reigned over all of his regrets. Sod the fact that she'd been with someone a year ago. It hadn't stopped either of them in the end. John was determined to not let anything keep them apart ever again. Rose was so, so right. It was just the two of them.

That is until she caught his eye as slowly lowered her hips onto his. A sense of completeness washed over John like the first wave of high tide. Only these waters were so warm, a soft velvet blanket enveloping him. His eyes fluttered shut and his head fell back. As they sat on his desk, all that then kept John from falling flat on his back were Rose’s fingers massaging his shoulders, because he couldn’t bear to let her go to keep his balance. Physics states that two objects cannot occupy the same space. But in that moment, when he was fully sheathed inside her, they came pretty damn close to proving this theory very wrong.

Straddling his lap, Rose began to slowly rock her hips with his. His stale office around him and the worries of being caught in the act all faded like a thick early morning fog giving way to sunrise. Rose was his sun, bright and golden, kissing his skin warm, and offering him the promise of a new day. She wouldn't burn him if he got too close. No, as her heart knocked at his chest and her warmth tensed around him, he felt as though they'd melted together.

Rose set a slow rhythm, relaxed now that they'd found their union. He was content to let her take the reigns. Her wide grin spread against his neck and measured movements left no room for doubts about knowing precisely what she was doing. Her peal of his name whispered into his neck slipped through the thick curtain of silence that had surrounded them when they joined and made him shiver and buck his hips. That little peal then became a gasping moan that John chased with his lips and teeth on her neck as her head fell back.

“John,” Rose cried, and leaned in to touch her forehead to his.

He rubbed away the mascara stains from her cheeks before he kissed her. Of course, Rose's beauty still made warm tremors race down his spine even when she did have makeup smudges on her pink cheeks. Her amber eyes still made heat pool low in his stomach when they captured his attention.

“Rose, I don't think I can hold on,” John confessed, and swallowed a moan as she ground her hips into his.

“It's okay, let go, love,” she panted. Pondering this new title made John’s heart skip a beat.

Rose didn't let him protest, perhaps anticipating it as she brought him into a deep kiss. She sucked his lip into her mouth while she sped up the pace of her rocking hips. He hoped she was chasing her own pleasure when she broke the kiss to moan against his parted lips. He felt a pang of hunger for that moan when it fell onto his ears. John _had_ to have more of the sound that made his cock pulse and throb from between her clenching muscles. So he craned his neck to reach her breast, where he laved its peak with his eager tongue before sucking it into his mouth. Rose's nails dug into his shoulder and she cried his name. He was only urged on by her heat constricting his throbbing cock that much tighter. When his fingers finally found and caught that precious hot button hooding her sex, Rose froze and muffled a cry into her hand.

He picked up where she left off when she stopped moving altogether. The low moan she released by his ear would make the sore bum he’d get later from sitting on his hard desk entirely worth it. She was so quiet, and he wondered if it was because she feared attracting attention or if this was how his lover was during sex. Either way, each sound that slipped past her soft lips washed gentle waves of warmth over him. Rose yipped when John's fingers dug into her bum as he picked up the pace.

Bliss came suddenly, and flooded John's consciousness before he could slow down enough to stop it. His hips rose off the desk so he could drive into Rose one last time before crashing and falling flat on his back with a dull thud. Rose had to nip at his neck a few times before he could breathe again.

“Rose,” he sighed.

She pushed him down when he made to roll them over. “Just hold me, okay?”

John happily obliged, biting back the cliché that entered his mind. She didn't need to hear it at that moment (or maybe even ever). The soft giggle that accompanied her kiss suggested to him that she already knew he had no intentions of ever letting go.

 

-:- -:- -:-

 

Rose had thought that after their eventful day that she'd at last get to sleep like a baby. She was a fitful sleeper, tossing, turning and wrapping herself in blankets so much that she often awoke feeling like a human burrito most mornings. John was buzzing with energy during waking hours, so Rose thought she might have found a kindred sleeper in him. But as he pulled her into a tight spoon that night, he proved himself to be quite stoic while sleeping. Perhaps it was because they'd just found each other, but he wouldn't let her drift too far in her sleep. His hand was quick to still her every wiggle and twist in her attempts at getting a restful sleep, if her excited heart would have even let her.

She even returned from the toilet to find him sitting up in his bed with heavy-lidded and bewildered eyes set on getting her back in bed. Rose smiled when he fell right back to sleep the moment his arm wrapped around her again. Curled up naked and sound asleep next to her, John looked so vulnerable. He'd been through so much heartbreak, yet he still opened up his heart to her.

Rose wasn't lacking her own problems. Mickey wasn't on speaking terms with her. She felt just a little pang of guilt for not sharing this with John. For one day Rose wanted to be selfish, and John had unwittingly indulged her. God, did he ever indulge her. He was quite thorough in spoiling her rotten.

She vowed to tell him, because if she couldn't manage to repair her relationship with Mickey, Rose worried he would be cross with her for not telling him. John had shared so much with Rose, secrets that she might have withheld given the chance. She worried she didn't deserve the love of John's tender heart. But with a hand over his chest, Rose made an additional vow to cherish it as she did his key that she held in her palm. That night, as she held up the little key that seemed to glimmer under the soft moonlight and hum in her palm, she whispered to it one more secret vow.

“Mm, I'm glad for that,” A groggy voice yawned as its owner pulled Rose closer. “I know you do at least have to leave to go to work though, hm?”

Rose blanched and looked up at John's face. She couldn't be mad when she spotted his unruly hedgehog bedhead and looked at her with eyes still hidden behind the fog of sleep. While he watched her get dressed he offered to call her a cab. Rose responded with a tongue-tucked grin and politely declined. She decided to make where she'd moved in a surprise for later.

This time when Rose stepped onto John’s front porch she pulled him by his t-shirt collar to her lips for a promise. She didn’t need to look back to see that cocky smile that dimpled his face and blanketed her heart in warmth. Rose felt like a caged bird that had been freed. Though she was walking away again, this time she knew that John would always be close by.


End file.
